Montana Community Foundation encourages people to donate back to their communities“Across Montana, communities know how painful it is having something they worked so hard for shut the doors because of lack of sustainable funding. Right now is an opportunity for this community to be proactive in taking advantage of this time in a visionary way by establishing an endowment to help you get through those not so good times,” Linda Reed, executive director, Montana Community Foundation, said. “An endowment can powerfully perpetuate the vitality of a community.”

Spring turns into robot season for Montana studentsRobots big and small are spreading across Montana, as hundreds of students build robots to compete in regional competitions this spring, according to Donna Minton, deputy director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium based at Montana State University.

University of Montana Pharmacy School Maintains Top-10 Research Ranking"I believe this ranking is a very strong indicator of the high quality of pharmacy faculty in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy," said Dave Forbes, dean of the College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences, which encompasses the UM pharmacy school. "Additionally, we are the only pharmacy school ranked in the top four schools that is not attached to a medical school."

Education

An innovative teacher turns kids into writers"When students are able to improve upon their writing skills, it builds a kind of confidence that translates into other academic areas," says Sandra Riley, a College Board spokeswoman.

Investment Bank Pulls Out of Montana Venture Fundhe legislators, regulators, entrepreneurs and potential funders need to come together and come up with a cohesive program to implement a full-fledged funding program that helps entrepreneurs develop their models and then find the best funding solutions. Without it, the ability of Montana to compete in a new economy world is going to be compromised.

Working from home is working. Employee desires, quicker Net fueling telecommutingMore than 30 years after the lifestyle began inching into corporate culture, there were almost 14 million Americans telecommuting at least part time in 2004, and an additional 7 million running businesses from home, according to the Labor Department. Human resources experts believe the number will continue to climb because more workers are demanding flexibility, and because high-speed Internet connections make telecommuting easier than ever.

Montana State IT Employees Save Montana $144,000 Per Year"Technology has changed government forever. Twenty years ago, who would have thought you would be able to buy your hunting and fishing license from your home computer? As we grow our technology infrastructure, we need to work diligently to keep the costs in line." Gov. Brian Schweitzer

In the quest for jobs, confusion over their worthSo why doesn't Washington, a state that touts economic development as a key priority, invest more in business incentives? Why should we? Are we certain that we're not investing enough? What's a job worth anyway?

Basic Research by Universities Is Critical to U.S. InnovationCoupling basic research with education -- as American universities do -- provides our next generation of researchers with the ability to flow with technological changes by being firmly grounded in the fundamental principles of a subject. That's the kind of understanding gained through basic research, Hoffman says.

University of Montana ranks top 10 in national health grantsLast year, roughly 100 UM scientists received $9,129,640 in research funding from the NIH. And considering UM has a significantly smaller amount of lab space than other state universities, it speaks to the world-class talent of UM’s staff, said Vernon Grund, chair of the UM Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Pushing the Internet Into Space"It has a lot of the attributes of the interplanetary internet built into it," Hooke said. "You could make an argument that as more missions pick up CFDP, we'll have the beginnings of the interplanetary internet."

'Largest Wireless Network' Planned For Arizona - 187-square-mile networkLast week, the region received a tacit endorsement of its wireless technology when Google announced that it will locate a facility at Arizona State University's Tempe campus. Google has been a strong advocate of wireless broadband and has indicated that the technology will constitute an important piece of its future business plans.

The Tech Chronicles - Hello WorldSo, what are we going to do? We're going to report and write about the technology universe, centering our coverage on Silicon Valley and San Francisco but spreading it around when needed. From wired to weird, if its got bits it fits.